Remembering Don Vicente

Yesterday, January 12, was the 118th birth anniversary of Don Vicente Gullas, founder and first president of the University of the Visayas and its satellite campuses. He crossed the great divide in 1970, hence, very few of the young Cebuanos, except perhaps those who have been connected with the UV, know about him. This is unfortunate because he was one of the pillars of tertiary education in Cebu and because as a person he was an exemplar of the first order. Knowing him therefore would have been a lesson on clean living, on courage and persistence in the face of great odds, and on self-abnegation and service to others.

As an educator, Don Vicente was one of the pioneers in tertiary education in Cebu. In 1919 he opened the Visayan Institute using a residential house near the Cebu Cathedral church. Starting with 37 students, the enrolment grew from year to year such that after a decade the VI had to resettle itself in a larger area in Colon street, the place where the main campus is presently located.

Don Vicente's place in the history of Cebu education, however, does not lie only in his founding of a college-based school. More significant were the many innovations he initiated in the interest of making education accessible to "poor but deserving students", to use his phrase. For instance, he was among the first to operate night classes designed for young people who were working during the day. This provided opportunity for social mobility, thereby improving the quality of life of those who took advantage of it.

Lawyers, accountants, businessmen, engineers, teachers and other professionals got their training from UV's evening courses. Many of them became outstanding leaders in their line of work. Some in fact became national figures in politics, the judiciary and other fields. The late Senator Tomas Cabili was one of these. Former Senator Ernesto Estrera was another, as well as scores of congressmen in the last few decades. In the judiciary former justice Regino Hermosisima is a standout along with incumbent Court of Appeal Justice Portia Aliño Hermachuelos.

Don Vicente's policy of allowing students to study and pay their fees after graduation was another significant innovation. Years later this evolved into DepEd's study-now-pay-later program, which like Gullas' scheme, had produced tens of thousands of professionals among the economically handicapped. Now these UV-bred professionals are spread throughout the Visayas and Mindanao practicing their careers in the light of the University's ideals of love, service and leadership.

If lives of great men can make our lives sublime, Don Vicente's life can indeed be a source of such sublimity. Simple in ways and humble in character, he never threw his weight around even as a president of the biggest university (in the 60's and 70's) in the Visayas. When this writer was the principal teacher of one of UV's satellite schools, Don Vicente would show up in his school very early in the morning two or three times a week. The first thing I would notice when he would come into the office was his smile. He was always calm and relaxed and even when some problems surfaced in the course of our talks his light-hearted mood was never affected.

His concern was always on proper school management but he was never "makulit" nor bossy and his capacity to listen to other's viewpoint was remarkable. More remarkable was Don Vicente's utter disregard of how much income the school was making. In the more than four years I served as head of school, he never mentioned money. At one time, I handed to him an envelope containing some money, the balance of our collection after paying some of our obligations. But he would not accept it when he learned that some teachers had not yet been fully paid. "Pay them first", he told me.

The UV Founder's 118th natal day is a day to remember an outstanding Cebuano educator, a man whose open-heartedness had brought success and happiness to thousands of young men and women, a man whom the late Senator Lorenzo Sumulong described thus: "It gladdens my heart to know that there are still Filipinos like UV President Gullas who puts ideals and things of the spirit over and above money making and worldly goods..."

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